Top Coat Stress Test: Claire’s Holographic Top Coat

I’ve tried a fair amount of Claire’s nail polishes at this point. The results have been consistently disappointing.  I keep purchasing them because they keep tempting me with interesting looking polishes, and having good sales on them. So, today’s test subject is their Holographic Top Coat.

This looks like their version of the well regarded Northern Lights top coat, which I have yet to try. The gimmick here is there’s fine holographic glitter in a clear base that all completely sinks to the bottom of the bottle. You need to shake it up before you apply it.

The formula is very watery. I felt almost like I’d bought a snow globe in a nail polish bottle! I put one modest coat over my beloved Ulta Blue Holiday. I wasn’t really happy with how it applied. As I put it on, it actually messed up my polish a little. This top coat seemed to drag the polish off my nails.  Even though I had three coats on, and it was completely dry before I put the holo top coat on, it ended up making my mani look patchy. I know it’s hard to see because it’s shiny, but trust me; this didn’t look so great in person. It’s most noticeable on my pinky. This is not something I would use over nail art; it’d get ruined for sure. On the positive side, the glitter distribution was evenly scattered and added a nice sparkle.

So, how did it perform?

A good hour after I’d put it on, when pretty much anything should be completely good to go, I got a fingerprint mark on one of my nails. I fixed that, thought I was all set. Within an hour of starting work the next day, I had catastrophic polish failure. It was like this top coat never really “cured”, and scraped off as I was working.

Verdict: Loser Polish

Wow. I have never seen a top coat act like this before! I don’t know what is up with this one, but the results speak for themselves. Save your $5.50 and do not buy this! Buy a proper snow globe instead.

Top Coat Stress Test: Claire’s Ombre Top Coat

Claire’s is an interesting place to shop for nail polish. From what I can tell, they’re one of the few brick and mortar places I check that put out some fairly innovative polishes. They’re the first place I ever encountered thermal and solar polishes. The quality of their polishes can be hit or miss, but I’ve bought enough hits over the year to justify buying more for science. Good sales don’t hurt either. That’s how I ended up picking up their Ombre Top Coat.

It’s not completely clear (no pun intended) how this is supposed to work. I asked the associate on duty, who genuinely had no idea either. There are no instructions on the bottle to provide guidance. She thought it was supposed to change like a thermal polish once it was applied based on the sticker on the cap.

That's a reasonable guess. However, it turns out this is a sheer white polish that’s meant to be layered to create an ombre effect.

I got out my bottle of Ulta Blue Holiday, my go to polish for testing out top coats. I used two coats of Blue Holiday, and then applied three coats of Ombre Top Coat.

Here’s what it looked like after I tried making an ombre mani.

It took me three tries to get these mediocre results. I started out with two coats of Blue Holiday, then layered three coats of Ombre Top Coat over that. The polish really doesn't really start building up until at least the second coat, and the glossiness of the finish makes it ever harder to see. I had hoped the darker polish would make the effect more pronounced, but no such luck. 

This is not a fast dry top coat, so it took ages for it to dry. I’m so spoiled on using Seche Vite on everything that I forgot I actually had to wait with this one. Whoops! I also found I needed to let each coat dry before I applied the next one. This stuff definitely requires patience. It does look nice and shiny though.

So, how did it hold up?

It did pretty well; it made it two days before the chips started. When it did, it actually started happening near my cuticles instead of at the tips of my nails.  

Being as this is a top coat, and a sheer one at that, it's useless for stamping and water marbling. I tried using it with nail vinyls to see if I could get the ombre effect to be more pronounced. Nope! The only thing that was more distinct was how hard this polish fails. If I used more than one coat, it built up too much and pooled in the vinyl and by my cuticle. Air bubbles, yay! No nice clean lines either. 

 

Verdict: Loser Polish

If I were to rate this strictly on the basis of durability, this would be Good. However, I don’t recommend buying it, especially at its full price of $5.50. If you want to do an ombre effect mani, I would say either use a regular sheer polish that has a use on its own, or go with three shades of the same color. This top coat requires too many layers to do its one job, and by that point it’s just not practical. Pass on this one. 

Top Coat Stress Test: Dance Legend Sahara Crystal

I’ve made no secret of my love of textured polish. I love the finish, the wear time is frequently excellent, and it’s fun to use in nail art too. Sometimes I wish it came in certain colors that seem to be hard to find, so when I learned Dance Legend made a top coat that would make any polish textured, I had to check it out.

Sahara Crystal doesn’t look like something that’s textured in the bottle. It reminds me of Milani Sardina with smaller flecks. Once you put it on and it dries, there’s no questioning that it’s textured. I had a lot of fun trying it out on different polishes. I found two light coats gave me the best results. I let the first coat completely dry before I added the second. 

One thing I noticed is that this polish is thicker than average. Over the course of using it in a couple full manicures and a bunch of swatches I noticed I’ve already used up a good quarter of the bottle!

This top coat changes how polish looks depending on what type it is. Here are some swatches I did over some polishes I’ve already reviewed. In all cases, the swatch on the left is the polish in its natural state, the one on the right has Sahara Crystal over it. 

First, here's Claire's Money Bags. I really like how this one looks.

Next, we have Color Club's Burnt Out.  This looks okay, but the duochrome properties of this polish really don't show through very well.

Here's Colour Prevails Date Night. I think this one is my favorite.

This is Color Club Beyond. It turns out that holographic polishes don't play nice with this top coat. I tried this on a couple other holos and had the same result. Pity, a textured holo would have been awesome. 

Finally, here's Sparitual Intention. This one looks pretty nice too The glass flecks in Intention add a little extra sparkle over and above what Sahara Crystal does.

I didn’t try water marbling with this. It almost seems like you could stamp with it, but I was afraid to try. I don’t want to risk scratching up my stamping plates.

Now, on to the actual stress test. I used my beloved Ulta Blue Holiday. This is one of my very favorites.  I know this polish is excellent, and what to expect from it, so I put the same two coats of Sahara Crystal over it to see how it’d do. As you can see, this top coat lightens it up a bit and adds sparkle.

So, how’d it do?

Turns out this top coat significantly reduced the wear time on this one. That was a bit disappointing. It was done in after one day.

Verdict: Party Polish

I was hoping this would have the same wear as a full on textured polish, but that definitely isn’t the case here. It goes for $9, so that's something to keep in mind if you decide you want it.

Still, this top coat is fun! I look forward to using it to get textured colors I can’t find.

Top Coat Stress Test: Revlon Matte Pearl Glaze

Matte polishes aren’t my favorite things in the whole world, yet I keep trying them. Up to this point, every one I’ve tried has ended up being party polish. Then I learned about Revlon’s Matte Pearl Glaze.

Matte Pearl Glaze is a part of Revlon’s Transforming Effects collection. What attracted me to this one is that it’s a matte top coat and it has a beautiful pink shimmer. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, so when Rite Aid recently had Revlon polishes on sale 2/$4, I made a point to acquire it.

I decided to test it over Ulta Blue Holiday, a polish I rated as excellent. My hope was that testing Matte Pearl Glaze over a solid foundation would tell me whether this was going to be a good topper, or $2 I’ll never see again. I used one coat over two coats of Blue Holiday.

 

I really love how this looked. The matte finish would have been nice enough on its own, but the pink shimmer really is fantastic 

So, how did it hold up?

Pretty well! I suspected it wouldn’t last as long as it would have if I’d used my usual top coat and I was correct. With that said it definitely did better than straight up matte polishes have. Just a couple chips and some loss of texture.

I did try stamping with it. It can be done but I don’t think it’s really worth it. It came out looking like adhesive that was left behind, and only showed up on really dark polishes. Pity that. I found it dried out too quickly to be used in water marbling. I think its best chances in nail art would be to use it with nail vinyls.

Verdict: Good

If you’re like me and you want your matte manicures to survive more than six hours, definitely give this top coat a try. I am looking forward to playing around with it some more. If Revlon came out with the same thing in different colors, I would absolutely buy them.